Vines in Saumur, photo courtesy of
I love quirky wine. I love talking about quirky wine and encouraging others to try quirky wine too. So many wines are so dull, I wish more people would open their minds and try many more different things – remember to click ALL the links.
Well recently I tried a wine that is far from dull. In fact it is really quite odd, to us in the UK anyway. It is a sparkling red made by the famous firm of Bouvet-Ladubay and I enjoyed it so much and found it so different that I made it my Wine of the Week. Sparkling reds are often regarded with a bit of suspicion, which is a great shame as they can often be delicious whether they are from Australia, France, Spain, or Italy in the form of real Lambrusco.
Vines at Château de Saumur, photo courtesy of Bouvet-Ladubay.
The tuffeau cellars, photo courtesy of Bouvet-Ladubay.
Bouvet Rubis Demi-Sec
Vin Mousseux
Bouvet-Ladubay
St Hilaire St Florent, Saumur, Loire Valley
France
Bouvet-Ladubay were founded near Saumur in 1851 and has been owned and run by Monmousseau since 1932 except for a, relatively, brief interlude from 1974 to 2015 when it was owned by Champagne Taittinger and then Diagio.
Saumur has long been known for quality sparkling wine production, as the climate is pretty cool. The soils are chalky and the bedrock is tuffeau which was mined for centuries to use as a building material. As a consequence the whole region has a warren of deep caves where the excavations happened. Some of them have been turned into troglodyte villages, some into mushroom farms and many into wine cellars, as the rock keeps them at a constant temperature. Bouvet-Ladubay age their sparkling wines in some of these tuffeau cellars.
This wine is simply labelled as a humble Vin Mousseux, or sparkling wine, but it is made using the traditional method and from a local noble grape variety – Cabernet Franc. It is possible that it does not have an appellation because it is not aged in the cellars on the lees for long enough, as the makers want the fruit to dominate – which it does.
One of the great things about sparkling reds is the lovely ruby coloured froth and that is just as you would hope from a wine called Rubis, or ruby in English. The nose has wonderful crushed raspberry and cherry notes and it is yeasty too, in fact it sort of smells a bit like a winery. The palate is richly fruity with black and red cherry, enlivened by some of the freshness of raspberry and strawberry and some cleansing acidity, together with a little sweetness. It is also enriched by some chocolate-like characters and a touch of bitter cherry stone flavours that help balance the sweetness too. In some ways this seems a weird wine, until you drink it anyway and then you realise what a very drinkable and delicious wine it is, so embrace the weird – 88/100 points.
Bouvet recommend having this with Raspberry Sorbet Macaroons, while I think it would go splendidly with duck and a wide array of cheeses. I actually enjoyed mine with a curry though, so it lives up to its cockney-rhyming slang name.
Available in the UK at £13.49 per bottle from Majestic Wine Warehouses – currently on offer at £11.99 and at £9.99 as part of 6 mixed bottles.
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